How The Social Construction of Disciplinary Boundaries and Disciplinary Hierarchies Shapes What Computer Science Gets Done

What are the core topics of Computer Science, and how are these topics studied? Those are the central questions of the Philosophy of Computer Science. However, how those questions are to be answered is a matter of ongoing debate and social construction. Guided by the questions answered by Shirley Gregor in her seminal work on theory in the field of Information Systems, this paper aims to understand how contemporary work on the philosophy of Computer Science answers these questions. In particular, we examine four recent books explicitly examining the topics and methodologies of Computer Science. While each of the books takes a different perspective and uses a different approach, all of them reach similar conclusions: Computer Science is firstly the study of computation, algorithms and their implementation and verification. In terms of the methods employed, the four books agree there are three separate traditions: a mathematical tradition, an engineering tradition and an empirical scientific tradition. The disciplinary boundaries of Computer Science are redrawn in each of the books, emphasizing mathematical, qualitative and empirical work over other forms of knowing. This paper also aims to ask the question what potential aspects of computer science that are currently undone. Which research methods are we not using due to the focus on mathematical, engineering or scientific reasoning? What research questions fall outside of the scope of current Computer Science? And are we as computer scientists influencing the world of computers and beyond enough?